Thursday, August 2, 2018

Reality Check , The Long Trail

   Well I guess that’s the back story and you are just about up to date. The next phase in the planning of this hike to complete a look at the trail and get it in our heads what was coming our way. I suppose you could call the reality check! The lump in your throat moment, Vermont here we come. This part of our story begins in Bangor Maine at the Bangor motor inn. For those who haven’t been there it is worth a visit. The staff is over the top friendly , the breakfast in the morning is wonderful, at night they serve $2:50 beer and will order you in takeout food, You can’t beat that. Now the rooms are clean but is a bit dated, the fixtures are still the same 1960 blue ! blue sink and blue toilet and blue tub. It is so out of date it almost back in style. 
   So after the consumption of a few beer the maps were reviewed by Pauline and I as we planned the next leg of our amazing race. Tom and Anita just giggled at the two of us when completing the route. Once finalized ,beer and pizza were in order. The next morning we left Maine crossed New Hampshire and entered Vermont. Stopped for lunch at a nice polish bakery on the border of Vermont before making our way to Jays Peak. Jays Peak is near the Northern terminus of the trail. This was not easy to see, the trail was marked but just not as elaborate as any of us had expected. Just a small sign with the letters LT and an arrow very unassuming , in way this makes sense it just blended in with the landscape as you would expect from the folks that lived there. Now I won’t bore you with all the details of this trip but would have a couple highlights. First – Holy shit there are a lot of Subaru’s here in this state! Every time you turned around there was one. There were times when we didn’t even turn around and there was Subaru’s around us. Next one they love there wood piles down here! These finely stacked piles kept Tom entertained throughout the full length of the state.
   One of our next stops was the hike to Camels Hump. This is one of the mountains that we will have transverse during the course of the trip. Pauline wanted to stop at this point and do a quick hike to see what the trail was like and just really get a feel of what it would be like. So there is a back story to this that Pauline was not aware of but played out well for Anita. Why this was so funny ( at least to us) is a few years ago after Janet’s 50th Birthday the kids wanted to know what Anita wanted to do that was exciting for her 50th . Matthew and Nicholas thought that a camel ride would be a great 50th birthday memory. So for about two years she had to endure the discussion about the camel ride. She now has camel decorations camel cards and camel cigarettes but no camel ride. But today we would hike the trail leading to the camel hump mountain. It has been named this due to the top of the mountain resembling the single hump of the camel. Unfortunately due to the ice and snow in the trail we could not make it to the hump. Still a great little hike. Before starting I asked Tom how he was felling. To quote him he said “ It’s a love Hate relationship right now with what we were doing”. We hike about a mile up and back down through ice , snow and bits of mud , when we finally reached the trail head where the car was parked Tom had a smile on that you couldn’t have slapped off. He really did enjoyed the hike this even surprise him. Cup of tea sipped and then on the road again.

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